Dan Fulmer Construction's specialty: Older homes

Company owner Mark LaRuez, framed by one of the many window styles he offers, stands in the showroom of Dan Fulmer Construction on Dewey Avenue. LaRuez took over the business a year or so ago from his father, Jim.
(Photo:
SHAWN DOWD/
,
staff photographer
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Dan Fulmer opened the home-improvement business that bears his name in 1960, just around the time that vinyl siding was introduced to the marketplace.

The Dewey Avenue business is still going strong 54 years later, minus its namesake and plus a few changes. Mark LaRuez is the owner now, and the company name has been slightly tweaked to Dan Fulmer Construction.

The business claims to have 40,000 past customers. LaRuez said he has stacks of old contracts, some dating back to 1962.

"When Dan started it, he was one of the bigger siding guys around," said LaRuez, 40. "He was 'the name' around here. Siding and roofing are still our bread and butter, but we've been moving more into insulation." The company also sells and installs doors, windows and gutters.

LaRuez took over the business a year or so ago from his father, Jim, who bought the company in 1990. Fulmer died in 1988, and his brother Ron ran the place a couple of years before selling to Jim LaRuez.

Dan Fulmer always was on the cutting edge of the industry, the LaRuezes said. The company once was featured in a Life magazine spread about a burgeoning product called Tedlar siding, they said. DuPont rolled out its Tedlar plastic coating in 1961, according to the DuPont website.

"Nobody sold more Tedlar in Monroe County than Dan Fulmer," said Jim LaRuez, who previously managed a building-supply company that sold materials to Fulmer. Fulmer was "always the salesman, never the installer," LaRuez said. When he assumed ownership, LaRuez said he bought the business and the building. "You really bought the name," his son added.

The business is at 1600 Dewey Ave., just north of Ridgeway Avenue in the Maplewood neighborhood. Twelve years ago, Jim LaRuez gutted the building to expand. He took over an adjoining area that used to house the Monroe County School Boards Association, which moved.

"That was good for them and good for us," LaRuez said. "They needed more room, and I needed a showroom."

Fulmer Construction mainly does exterior work. The company specializes in working on older homes and also does what Mark LaRuez called "little jobs," like repairs. Those little jobs lead to referrals and repeat customers when bigger jobs are needed, he said.

"Our files have so many cross-references," LaRuez said.

Fulmer Construction is EPA-certified, lead-certified and asbestos-certified, which means its crews can work on any kind of project, said Jim LaRuez. "My workers have all gone to classes," he said.

Mark LaRuez actually runs the place now, but his dad still has an office. Mark started in 1992, when he was a sophomore at Greece Arcadia High School, in the "grunt" category of cleaning up sites.

"We had one dump truck that cleaned up all the jobs," he said. "We used a pitchfork to shovel it all in."

The company now has five dump trucks and two "roofer's buggies" – machines with rolling, motorized flatbeds that extend and rise up, making cleanup faster and easier.

"I still say, the easiest mess to clean is the one you don't make," Mark LaRuez said.